In a recent interview, Thunderbolts* star Julia Louis-Dreyfus confirmed that she had finished filming her scenes as the scheming Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, but was hesitant to discuss the movie in any more detail.
However, the Seinfeld alum was a little more forthcoming while speaking to The New York Times, suggesting that Thunderbolts* might be more character-focused than we expected.
"It's very well organized. Very methodical. And I don't mean that in a negative way," Louis-Dreyfus said of her time working on the Marvel Studios' team-up film. "Particularly on this film, they're very much focused on, frankly, the human story, believe it or not. They're trying to sort of go back to their roots, as it were. And so there's a lot of focus on that. They're trying to stay away from as much CGI or whatever as possible, so that the stunts are, like, everywhere. And in fact, I had to do a couple."
Louis-Dreyfus declined to answer a question about doing her own stunts in the previous interview, but it sounds like Val will indeed be seeing some action.
"I'm making this out to sound like I'm flying through the air like Captain America or whatever, but I'm not," she added before clarifying, "It's just a very, very, very, very brief stunt."
A recent rumor may have revealed some new plot details about Thunderbolts*.
According to Daniel Richtman, the movie will begin with Yelena Belova, US Agent, Ghost and Taskmaster being sent by Val to take out an unknown target "in a vault." We don't know who this character is, but the crew soon realize that they were sent there to die, and decide to team-up to bring Val down.
How Sentry factors in remains to be seen, but there's a decent chance he'll be the person the team is set to eliminate. We'd also bet on Val enlisting Sentry to protect her against reprisals at some point.
Olga Kurylenko - who will reprise her Black Widow role as Taskmaster - was asked about that asterisk during a recent interview with Screen Rant, and while she chose her words carefully, the actress did confirm that the project has undergone some changes since it was first announced.
"Well, they changed a couple of things. [Laughs] That's all I can say, but that also doesn't say anything, because obviously every movie is different, and in every movie, things change. But yeah, it will be different, we'll see. There's nothing I can say."
Still not much to go on, obviously, but we'd say Thunderbolts* turning out to be a completely different movie - maybe even Dark Avengers - is the most likely explanation.
Though other characters might well be added, the Thunderbolts roster currently consists of Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Taskmaster (Kurylenko).
Allegra de Fontaine will put the team together, and rumor has it that she may also be partially responsible for Sentry's creation.
As for Sentry, Lewis Pullman (Salem's Lot, Top Gun Maverick) recently joined the cast as the powerful, unstable character, replacing The Walking Dead alum Steven Yeun in the role.
There were rumors that Harrison Ford's Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross would be involved, but that's yet to be confirmed. Black Widow's Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne) from Ant-Man and the Wasp are also rumored to appear.
Thunderbolts* is currently set to be released in theaters on May 2, 2025.